A humble leader stacks more points than a tough leader – research

A humble leader stacks more points than a tough leader – research

Scientists and researchers at the Buffalo School of Management have said that a humble leader’s chances at succeeding are far better than that of a leader who is tough and stubborn with his co-workers.

Many employees do complain about their bosses being too hard on them and making them work as slaves. Such behaviours from bosses and leaders could be effective in generating the required results but research has now proven that a boss who is understanding
and fair with his employees will garner more support and loyalty from his/her workers.

"Leaders of all ranks view admitting mistakes, spotlighting follower strengths and modeling teachability as being at the core of humble leadership," says Bradley Owens, assistant professor of organization and human resources at the University at Buffalo
School of Management. "And they view these three behaviors as being powerful predictors of their own as well as the organization’s growth."

Owens and David Hekman asked 16 CEOs, 20 mid-level leaders and 19 front-line leaders to describe in detail how humble leaders work in a workplace and how a humble leader acts differently than a non-humble or a tough leader.

Though the leaders were from different organizations like military manufacturing companies, financial services, health care departments, retailing and religious fields, it was unanimously agreed that the essence of leadership and humility in a leader involves
modeling to followers how to gro.

"Growing and learning often involves failure and can be embarrassing," says Owens. "But leaders who can overcome their fears and broadcast their feelings as they work through the messy internal growth process will be viewed more favorably by their followers.
They also will legitimize their followers’ own growth journeys and will have higher-performing organizations."

Researchers found out that leaders who are humble in their approach know how to generate results from their workers far better than leaders who are aggressive in their approach towards getting the right results.

Research further suggested that humble leaders who were young, nonwhite or female did not get so much success. However, humble leaders who were white makes reaped a lot of benefits and support due to their behavior towards their employees.

"Our results suggest that female leaders often experience a ‘double bind,’" Owens says. "They are expected to be strong leaders and humble females at the same time."

In the end, Owens and Hekman offered a straightforward advice to all leaders in general. They said that humility is an attribute of humans that cannot be faked. Either a leader has to genuinely learn to be humble or he does not.

Accepting mistakes and admitting it when they are wrong are as important as being able to get the right output from the workers so this recent research is certainly one that should be taken into account by all leaders whether they are humble or not.

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Posted by Taimoor Tariq on Dec 10 2011. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry